After pulling off the biggest upset in election history, how long until pence is president?

11/8/2016 7:04:56 PM

This has to be done to be fair to Hitler

11/8/2016 8:30:44 PM

i pledge to get arrested at inauguration.

11/8/2016 9:40:23 PM

Doesn't limiting government power seem like a good idea right now?

11/8/2016 11:27:55 PM

I expect George W. Bush's presidency, but on a domestic scale.. or maybe nuclear Armageddon.. either way...

11/8/2016 11:49:04 PM

if trump was so reckless, he would've destroyed his company by now.

11/8/2016 11:50:25 PM

Can't really see anything good coming out of his President. Regressive SCOTUS judges. Repealing Obamacare. Repealing Dodd-Frank. Gutting the EPA, FCC, FTC, etc..... And that's just domestically. Terrifying.

11/9/2016 12:05:01 AM

Curious about what's going to happen to Republicans who didn't jump on the Trump train.

11/9/2016 12:16:06 AM

Nothing. He's going to rubber stamp anything they put on his desk. They are elated right now.

11/9/2016 12:18:22 AM

Trump hasn't exactly shown a great capacity for magnanimity.

11/9/2016 12:21:46 AM

the democrats weren't going to do anything progresssive so i'll gladly take the tax cuts since my money was going to waste anyway

11/9/2016 12:32:52 AM

11/9/2016 1:40:15 AM

The good news is he's probablyy going to be pretty ineffectual. I don't think he really has much of an agenda. Congress will give him some immigration reform to sign early on, there's a decent chance Obama are gets rolled back, and maybe some trade protection happens. That's about it.

It's not the end of the world.

11/9/2016 2:20:36 AM

Giving his first speech as president elect.

Talking about unity.

11/9/2016 2:51:57 AM

How sad are coal miners going to be when they realize they still wont have jobs?

11/9/2016 6:37:13 AM

So what happens when Trump is convicted of raping that 13 year old? Mike Pence? ***shudder***

[Edited on November 9, 2016 at 6:49 AM. Reason : Oh, it was dismissed, just ignore me]

11/9/2016 6:48:11 AM

Can anyone convince me he has the ability to make good choices?

He has the senate and house? No check in place?

The only check is 2018 elections.

11/9/2016 6:53:23 AM

Isn't it more like "Republicans have control of the house and senate with no check in place"

11/9/2016 7:34:14 AM

The check is going to have to be establishment Republicans.

11/9/2016 7:38:32 AM

You are making the assumption Trump cared about anything but winning.

Paul Ryan's agenda is the real winner. It'll get rubber stamped, for better or worse.

11/9/2016 7:57:41 AM

^^Establishment Repubs aren't going to do shit. They didn't have a spine when it looked like it might actually even be beneficial to stand up to Trump, and they damn sure aren't going to grow a spine now that their base turned out in entirety to elect this gonzo.

11/9/2016 8:36:40 AM

Can't wait to see John Oliver EVISCERATE Trump! That'll show everyone!

Ooh or maybe Lena Dunham will do another rap video.

Goddammit I hate fucking Democrats right now.

Also I'm sure glad we are handing off a 15-year war in 8 countries against an abstract notion based on a one page document to Donald fucking Trump. Oh and a massive surveillance state. None of that will be an issue I'm sure. Christ.



[Edited on November 9, 2016 at 8:48 AM. Reason : Done for real this time]

11/9/2016 8:41:07 AM

There are enough angry white people that if you can get turnout way up, well there you go.

11/9/2016 8:46:00 AM

^^ for eight years really. No way to win the Senate back for awhile and House isn't realistic until after next Census. By that time voter disenfranchisement will be upheld at every level I'm sure.

Gonna be a long, dark period before we have any progressive governing.

11/9/2016 8:49:42 AM

Quote :

"Paul Ryan's agenda is the real winner. It'll get rubber stamped, for better or worse."

This could be the silver lining to this whole election.

11/9/2016 9:26:16 AM

If he finally gets Republicans behind a big infrastructure spending bill, that will be one silver lining.

11/9/2016 9:32:30 AM

I know one big infrastructure project he'll green light along the southern border. At least it'll provide some jobs, mostly to the immigrants it's designed to keep out.

11/9/2016 9:35:53 AM

So we're looking at Newt, Rudy and Christie tagging along so far?

What swamp is trump draining again bc it looks like he filled it with the same shit.

11/9/2016 10:14:13 AM

I mean everyone knew it was all rhetoric.

I doubt even the people in Appalachia think coal and manufacturing are actually coming back..

11/9/2016 10:23:48 AM

Quote :

"Can't wait to see John Oliver EVISCERATE Trump! That'll show everyone! Ooh or maybe Lena Dunham will do another rap video. Goddammit I hate fucking Democrats right now. Also I'm sure glad we are handing off a 15-year war in 8 countries against an abstract notion based on a one page document to Donald fucking Trump. Oh and a massive surveillance state. None of that will be an issue I'm sure. Christ."

Pretty much this. Civil libertarians have been told to relax every time an issue was raised because we were just supposed to "trust" Obama and not be so paranoid, etc. Now a egomaniacal madman has complete control over all of this.

And Clinton lost the rust belt. That's on establishment Democrats. She didn't even bother campaigning in Wisconsin, because she just assumed that union towns would support a Democrat.

Democrats are in four a rude awakening, and they can't even blame the progressive left for voting Green, because Johnson played more of a spoiler than Stein. I'm sure they'll try, though.

The important lesson here is that populism won. Democrats are no longer the party of the people, but they still think they are. And that's why they lost. They falsely equate identity politics with populism and consider that progressive, when they instead they should be focusing on income inequality, which affects more of the people they just lost.


If democrats even bothered with a little introspection, they'd see their glaring deficiencies. But instead they'll just cry about sexist bigots without addressing the elephant in the room that is severe income inequality.

11/9/2016 10:30:28 AM

clinton's performance during the primary in the rust belt and corn belt states should have been a warning they listened to

11/9/2016 10:48:55 AM

^^I like what you're saying, and I think it's important for Dems to take a much harder look at this issue (not to mention individuals need to take a long hard look at Dems)

But is it really the reality? Didn't the average Trump voter pull down at or above median income levels? Aren't they pretty well off compared to the average American?

[Edited on November 9, 2016 at 10:51 AM. Reason : I'm not sure the average Trumpkin is really hurting that bad]

11/9/2016 10:50:47 AM

^Yes.



Again I'm not going to stand by any of the assumptions I made prior to the election but it's clear that economics wasn't the only Factor at play here.

11/9/2016 11:01:14 AM

that's only true if 1) you pretend that the largest demographic of working americans making $50k-$99k are having an easy time and 2) don't consider economic confidence/certainty

it is dangerous for the democratic party to ignore that economics played a roll in this election. americans wanted a populist message and trump gave it to them

[Edited on November 9, 2016 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2016 11:03:06 AM

I just want to distinguish one thing. He TALKED about giving them that message. His actual policy really doesn't match his rhetoric. But Clinton/Obama basically ignored it and gave bigger picture numbers (that I now understand are great for me but not so great for a huge chunk of the voting population).

11/9/2016 11:21:35 AM

yeah, i'm talking about rhetoric

until we have a serious media in this country, rhetoric is all that matters as long as you can make it believable enough

11/9/2016 11:25:35 AM

50k isn't middle class any more in urban areas, or else middle class standards have reached new lows

11/9/2016 11:26:29 AM

i realize that a bunch of middle income folks are having some economic anxiety, I just question how much of that anxiety is real and how much of it is derived from the realization that brown people and women might be catching up to them.

11/9/2016 11:27:22 AM

^
youre severely out of touch

11/9/2016 11:28:05 AM

I didn't say economics didn't play a role, but you're not gonna sell me on white folks making >$50k in rural Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin where cost of living is relatively low having a rough go of it compared to the average American. Maybe they aren't driving Benz's and drinking top shelf liquor, but they aren't fighting for scraps either. The big cities, where the lower end of those income levels actually do leave you pretty close to poverty, voted overwhelmingly for Hillary.

Also, if it's really economic resentment, why are they so fiercely against government programs designed to help the poor and middle class? Obama's policies are and have been good to the middle class and Hillary's would have been too. Is it purely a messaging issue, or in this case, the messenger?

11/9/2016 11:28:20 AM

its not enough to participate in the american dream, and have class mobility and confidence that you will be able to retire. and they are angry about it

Quote :

"lso, if it's really economic resentment, why are they so fiercely against government programs designed to help the poor and middle class? "

because they largely benefit people making less than them

you are giving a great example of a coastal liberal who is out of touch with rural america

we tried to tell you not to ignore the working white during the primary and you didn't listen then. if you keep ignoring the working white class its going to be a long time before the democratic party is back in power.

Quote :

"Is it purely a messaging issue, or in this case, the messenger?"

largely, but not entirely. the democratic party decided a couple decades ago to ignore working class politics and instead focus on identity politics. this is the result, labor no longer supports the democratic party.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/white-workers-bernie-sanders-clinton-primary-racism/

Quote :

"Unfortunately, the miseries, hardships, and exploitation of white workers don’t fit into an easy capital-friendly framework. Liberals then have two options: blame the individual moral failings of white workers or call into question the very nature of capitalism itself. Guess which one they choose. More and more, liberals just point and scream: “racist.” Certainly, many members of the white working class reject the Obama/Clinton program of inclusion and meritocracy for reactionary reasons (and vote Republican), many more are pretty lukewarm about it. When polled, they support far more egalitarian policies like the kind associated with the Sanders campaign. But when it comes down to it, few of them show up on election day. And frankly, it’s hard to blame them. There’s not much in it for them. There’s no political party looking out for their interests — only ones telling them to do more with less. We’re socialists. We don’t talk about workers all the time because they’re the most exploited or because there’s something uniquely heroic and noble about them. There isn’t. The working class is central to a meaningful progressive politics because they have the numbers, the economic incentive and the potential power to halt capital in its tracks — to check the power of our ruling class and build a truly democratic society out of this miserable oligarchy we all find ourselves stuck in today. It becomes clearer every year, particularly with Sanders’s popularity, that the American ruling class has made out like bandits simply by keeping portions of the large (and potentially powerful) working class from uniting in a single political party behind even a social-democratic program. And that such a scenario would be nothing short of a disaster for them. It’s obvious that this kind of popular politics will never be built if segments of the working class — much less a majority of it — are written off. So when I hear liberal pundits saying that white workers are morally compromised beyond hope or on the way to irrelevance, I tend to get a little suspicious. But when those same pundits claim — despite all evidence to the contrary — that most of these workers are more invested in cultivating racism than their own material and social emancipation, I think it’s time to stop listening to them altogether."

[Edited on November 9, 2016 at 11:40 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2016 11:30:25 AM

Quote :

"because they largely benefit people making less than them"

I don't agree with this and you're going to have to show me some empirical evidence to prove otherwise. This sounds like FUD spread by Fox News and Republicans railing against big government and higher taxes. The facts are that Obama's policies helped the middle class tremendously, and would have helped them more if Republicans didn't obstruct his agenda for the last 6 years.

11/9/2016 11:44:03 AM

The democrats assumed that the unions in the rust belt would rally the troops for them without actually campaigning for them. They must not have been paying attention to just how drastically union participation rate in the workforce have gotten. Considering that NAFTA contributed significantly to the decline of union participation and got hammered constantly by Trump, it's hard to fathom the Democrats making a mistake this colossal.

11/9/2016 11:48:25 AM

^^ how many times do you need to be told that voters don't act rationally, its entirely about what they think is reality

11/9/2016 11:49:39 AM

It's also worth noting that Trump over performed in the polls, meaning people who are usually apathetic showed up for him. That kind of mobilization was there for the taking (and has been for decades) for anyone willing to go populist.

Conventional wisdom would have suggested that the democrats would have done it first. But if this election has made ANYTHING apparent, it's that Democratic operatives and party leaders chose corporate money and party loyalty over a clear path to victory.


Sorry, but the democrats have been marching toward this disaster for a while now.

11/9/2016 12:32:01 PM

Quote :

"Can't really see anything good coming out of his President. Regressive SCOTUS judges. Repealing Obamacare. Repealing Dodd-Frank. Gutting the EPA, FCC, FTC, etc..... And that's just domestically. Terrifying."

That's one of the things that got him elected. Obamacare is a piece of shit law. Everyone wanted some reform, but nothing like that. The cost of healthcare has gone up for the middle class and not down. The democrats forced it on America and America didn't want it.

11/9/2016 1:50:21 PM

^ The cost of healthcare was going up before Obamacare

Yeah the ACA increased the rate hikes further, but that has more to do with the insurance companies than the law.

11/9/2016 5:50:45 PM

How about seeing Bannon on the stage for the acceptance speech. These 4 years are going to get crazy

11/9/2016 5:51:47 PM

https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/796477876073857024

Looking at the people Trump is surrounding himself with, seems entirely establishment, elite, pro-torture, pro-war, corporatist republicans.

Mixed with alt-right Bannon/Breitbart types.

What exactly was it people were voting for again...?

11/9/2016 5:59:23 PM

Quote :

"Donald Trump has selected one of the best-known climate skeptics to lead his U.S. EPA transition team, according to two sources close to the campaign. Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, is spearheading Trump’s transition plans for EPA, the sources said. "

It begins...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-picks-top-climate-skeptic-to-lead-epa-transition/

11/9/2016 6:25:49 PM